Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver twist, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver twist e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! CHARLES DICKENS (1812 - 1870) Dickens was born into a ​low-class family​. His father had big debts and was also arrested. In this time, Charles had to leave school in order to work in a fabric. For this reason, during his childhood he develops a sympathy for ​poor classes​ and ​social awareness​. After the release of his father, he ends the studies and then works at first in a legal office and after that as a journalist. He was cheerful, extrovert but also harsh and arrogant. He often wrote about poverty, school sistem, troubled childhood and industrial revolution. Writing, he published his stories in newspapers in ​instalments​. Doing so, people was hooked of the narration and wanted to read more stories. He wrote differents kind of novel: - realist novel​: writing this genre of novel, Dickens was very meticulous about details, making descriptions through metaphors - humoristic novel​: very import here are the characterisation of the people and dialogues - social and humanitarian novel​: in this type of book, Dickens’ main concerns are moral evil, corruption on society and their consequences. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY Very important in this work is the satire. Despite this, Dickens used both a complex storyline and psychologically complex and stereotypical characters, which will not evolve through the narration. After a poor investment that results in the loss of all his money, Nicholas Nickleby’s father dies, leaving Nicholas to look after his mother and Kate, his younger sister. Nicholas’s unpleasant, hateful Uncle Ralph finds Nicholas a low-paying job as an assistant to Wackford Squeers, who works as the schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire. Squeers is unpleasant, and only has one eye. Nicholas soon receives word from Newman Noggs, Uncle Ralph’s clerk, offering Nicholas assistance. Noggs hates Ralph, too, but his personal history and poor economic condition has pushed him into Ralph’s employ. Nicholas learns that Squeers takes unwanted children into his school and forces them to live under terrible conditions, pocketing most of the money their parents send for their upkeep. The lessons Squeers teaches are terrible, too, revealing his own lack of education. Fanny Squeers, Wackford’s daughter, takes a liking to Nicholas, and convinces herself that Nicholas loves her. At a card game they both attend, Nicholas flirts with Tilda Price. She, however, is engaged to John Browdie. Both John and Fanny take offense to Nicholas’s flirting, and Nicholas makes it clear to Fanny that he does not share her feelings.In return, Fanny makes life difficult for Nicholas and for his friend, Smike. Nicholas intervenes during one of Squeers’s beatings of Smike—a perpetually ill and dim-witted boy who befriends Nicholas—and Nicholas brutally attacks Squeers. John Browdie comes upon Nicholas after Nicholas leaves the school after the attack. Browdie takes pleasure in Squeers’s beating and gives Nicholas money and a walking stick. Later, Smike finds Nicholas, and the two friends set out for London. Kate and her mother are forced by Uncle Ralph to leave their house and move in with the friendly Miss LaCreevy in a house in the London slums. Kate goes to work for a milliner, but because of office intrigue, she is not liked. Nicholas seeks the assistance of Noggs, who reveals that Uncle Ralph has received a letter from Fanny, making Nicholas seem like the aggressor in his fight with Squeers. Ralph uses the attractive Kate to entice wealthy business partners at a dinner party. During the dinner, Kate is assaulted, though Uncle Ralph intervenes before she is injured. Ralph forces Kate to keep the encounter a secret. Later, Nicholas and Smike head to Portsmouth, intent on becoming sailors. Instead, a theater company hires Nicholas. The boys are warmly welcomed by the assorted theater folk, and successfully make their debut in ​Romeo and Juliet​. Nicholas begins flirting with Miss Snevellici, the Juliet to his Romeo. In London, Kate is fired when the business gets a new owner. Kate again becomes the target of unwanted attention, and is rescued by Noggs. Noggs reaches out to Nicholas, who quickly returns to London. Once in London, Nicholas overhears Kate’s assailants boasting in a coffeehouse, and he attacks them. As the assailants flee, they fight amongst themselves. As a result, one of them is killed, and the other heads to France. Uncle Ralph loses a large amount of money that was owed to him by the dead man. Nicholas, Smike, his mother, and Kate all move back into Miss LaCreevy’s house. Soon, though, Nicholas meets the friendly and generous Charles Cheeryble, who offers Nicholas a job and provides a home for Nicholas and his family. Squeers comes to London, and together with Ralph, plots more pain for Nicholas. During this time, Squeers finds Smike and kidnaps him. As fate would have it, John Browdie is there and rescues Smike. Nicholas falls in love with Madeline Bray, who very nearly marries someone else. Smike later contracts tuberculosis. Smike tells Nicholas that he loves Kate before dying in his friend’s arms. As the novel approaches its conclusion, Uncle Ralph and Squeers reveal a plot to steal the will of Madeline’s grandfather. Ralph learns that Smike was actually his son from a beggar who has been appearing throughout London. Broken by this news, Ralph commits suicide. For his role in the crime, Squeers is sentenced to transportation to Australia. The Nicklebys all return to Devonshire. OLIVER TWIST With this book, Dickens defenses the underprivileged (such as the children) and at the same time he critics the society. Meanwhile, he wants to counter the idealization of rogues and criminals. Oliver is an orphan who lives until the age of nine in a poorhouse, where he goes hungry and suffers abuse by the Director, Mr. Bumble. The classic scene in which the half starved Oliver begs for some more food and is viciously denied by the obese Mr. Bumble exemplifies the inequity of Victorian society. Oliver is then sent to work at a funeral home. Here, too, he is treated very badly. One day Oliver escapes and flees to London, where he gets involved with a gang of thieves and pickpockets headed by Fagin, a satanic character and corrupter of young boys. Oliver now begins an underground, nocturnal, life together with his companions:​ Fagin​, the Artful Dodger, Claypole, and most importantly Nancy, who is a thief and a prostitute but basically a good person who has been led astray by Fagin and her lover, the violent Bill Sikes. Nancy, affectionately known to Fagin's boys as "Nance" and Bill Sykes were both old pupils of Fagin. Oliver also comes under the influence of the mysterious Monks, another thief, who has some unknown connection to Oliver. It is later revealed that Monks has paid Fagin to keep Oliver in his clutches and turn him into a thief, as part of